Maria, Priestess of Hera

The next few characters will be for Basic Fantasy. I am running a one shot on Saturday the tenth and need some pregens.

Reading the character creation rules reminded me of a thought I've had about Basic Fantasy. The basic it is looking back to is not B/X or BECMI. It is Holmes. It lacks race as class and in general feels much closer to restating Holmes via 3.0 than the later versions.

Like Holmes and the later basics it is 3d6 in order. Let's look at my initial roles.

ST: 13 IQ:11 WS: 14 DX: 13 CN: 6 CH:10

That's a pretty respectable character except for that constitution score. Under Game Master Information the game offers three options for GMs to allow players to rearrange scores plus a fourth for hopeless characters (those with a value below 9 in the first four abilities rendering them ineligible for all four of the core classes).

Consulting with the gamemaster he decided to allow me option 2, swap one pair. Now my abilities look like

ST: 13 IQ: 11 WS: 14 DX: 10 CN: 13 CH: 6

And I have a cleric who was clearly sent adventuring instead of tending a flock due to his inability to deal with parishioners.

One interesting note is this is our first game built on the classic D&D chassis to use a standard abilities bonus and penalty chart, using the one we know from B/X and BECMI. Our cleric's bonuses add up to +2 with only one negative and three positive. Not bad for 3d6.

We get 1d6 for hit points, giving us a lucky 6.

I'm a bit worried about gold, but I roll a 10 for 100gp, thirty more than Alfred got back on the first.

Starting with armor we'll start with chain and shield for 67 gp and 33 remaining. She'll carry a mace and a sling along with 10 sling bullets for 7gp, leaving 26. Sling stones are free but the bullets do 1d4 instead of 1d3 for 1sp. Our cleric figures a little extra oomph is worth a gold piece.

Next I'll grab a belt pouch (for the sling bullets) and a backpack for 5gp and 21 remaining.

And then I realize a holy symbol is 25gp. We'll drop to leather armor, gaining 40 gp and dropping our AC to 14. After grabbing that expensive holy symbol we're still left with 36 gold.

A lantern, five flasks of oil, and a tinderbox eat up 16gp. A week's dry rations and a waterskin round out the equipment she carries into our border fort costing 11gp leaving her with 9gp.

We just need a deity and a name. I think a rather stern and humorous priestess must belong to Hera. Looking at Greek women's names I see Maria means "Sea of Bitterness" which sounds perfect.

I need to print out character sheets and scan them in. I'll add a link to her sheet when I do.